The Painted Veil
by Irinazure
Summary: One-shot taking place after Belle left the Beast to return to her father. The cursed prince reflects on his past and his feelings for Belle. This one is inspired by all versions of this classic love story. Dedicated to everyone who ever had their heart broken or their love not returned.


**A/N: Hello everyone! Oh my, the first time since I think a year or two that I'm posting something Beauty-and-the-Beast-related, but I couldn't keep myself any longer from writing this little baby here. It's a mix from different versions of the tale, most prominently those created by Disney and Madame de Villeneuve, so please bear with it if some detail or another doesn't quite fit with one specific canon. **

**This is just meant to let the Beast show his feelings and give him a chance to repent his past mistakes. He is in my opinion one of the most intresting figures in literature, a kind of forerunner for so many anti-heros and lost souls and he really deserves his moments.**

**The inspiration for this one-shot comes from the songs 'If I Can't Love Her' from the broadway musical and 'Sauras-tu M'aimer?' sung by Yoann Freget for the French 2014 film. And please don't sue me. I think after so many adaptations I can't really claim to owning anything here. Oh well...**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

She was gone.

Once more he was alone, like all those years before her arrival, like ever since. He was alone, the cool night air barely caressing his fury cheeks.

It was almost laughable, the fact he was standing on his balcony in the middle of the night, had not moved from that spot for hours like some lover abandoned. In the distance he could hear the faint cry of an owl searching the ground for an unwary mouse. The rustle of a badger, the howls of a pack of wolves. All too familiar these sounds drilled into his ears, his mind, reminding him where and what he was.

She had once asked if he possessed a name. Dumbfounded he had stared into the air, incapable of uttering a reply. Her dark eyes had waited patiently. Those two pools of liquid chocolate, so deep he could easily drown in them. Thankfully something else had caught her attention then, had averted her thoughts from the subject and saved him further embarrassment.

Of course he had had a name once - a normal name, the sound of which had ignited respect in ears all around the country. His bloodline was old, his ancestral titles regarded. But what importance did that have now? Like his name his former life was but a distant memory, a scenery of sounds and colours.

He wondered if she was well, but almost laughed at his folly the next moment. Of course she would be well now that she was finally reunited with her family. She was back with her father and siblings. She had escaped the horrid beast, the monstrosity that hid himself behind thick walls and silence.

His fists unclenched and his claws grabbed the balustrade. The cold stone provided his sole support. That was all he was to her – a monster, a creature, detestable and unnatural. Never would she come back. Never would he be able to prove that there was more to him, more than his hideous appearance could convey. Beneath the maroon fur and horns she would never see anything else than a beast.

From the start he had been aware that the enchantress' spell had been final, any hope of breaking it futile. And he had banished hope from his mind for the last ten years. He had thought himself smart, but that which he had taken for smartness had been no more than innocent ignorance, youth's naivety. How arrogant he had continued to be. That is until he had learned what love was.

Belle had finally opened his eyes and the light of truth blinded him with unmatched brilliance. Meeting her had been the greatest gift he had ever been granted, but it had taken so much of him at the same time. That wondrous girl had shown him the beauty of the world, lifted the shadows that had loomed over his existence for those ten long years. She had read to him, talked with him, dined with him. She and she alone had made him forget his lot for a few short moments, had made him feel human again.

But when these moments would pass he would realise with painful clarity that nothing had changed. He still possessed paws instead of hands. Even his tail, horns and claws were still in place. He was not human.

Pain shot through his arm as his knuckles crashed against the balustrade's unyielding stone. A roar left his lips - a sound of anguish, grief, despair. Not the cry of a man, but of a wild animal, the animal he was and would remain for the rest of his pathetic existence. Not originating from his nearly-crushed bones, but in a pain much worse, buried deep inside his veins and flesh. A pain that would never heal or numb away.

He knew the curse's conditions better than any prayer. To learn to love someone and earn their love in return. How cruel fate was!

He had not considered she could be his one way out when she had first stepped foot into his domain. Truth was he had not believed there could be any hope left within him. She had been just a girl, a replacement for her father. Defiant, obviously foolish and undoubtedly hot-tempered. So much like him, he had later realised with a grin.

How he remembered the first time he had seen her. The long silky waves of her hair flowing down her back like a waterfall, her white skin glooming like porcelain in the dark. And her eyes. Never had he seen such brilliant eyes, fire dancing in their depths.

Eyes that had turned warm in the last months of her stay, at times even tender and compassionate. Were it not utter folly, he should think he had once or twice caught the spark of affection in them, perhaps even love. But it was folly. Never would such an angel hold anything but disgust for a monster like him. No one could ever blame her. After all, the part she had been assigned to without her knowledge or consent was one impossible to fulfil.

If only she could have lifted the veil. If only she could have seen behind her fears.

Belle had instead taught him how to love. Gradually he had lost his heart to her kindness and now she had taken it with her in her flight.

Whatever it had been he had envisioned in her eyes it had been nothing but an apparition conjured up by his mind. Nothing more but a dream. No feelings in them reserved for him. She would get married one day, bear children and lead a happy life without darkness or magic. Then that which his failing wits had made him see would truly linger in the surface of her shining chocolate orbs, only meant for her husband.

He wondered if she would ever think of him, if the memory of her hideous jailer would ever creep into her mind from time to time like the tune of a long forgotten song. It hurt to imagine so, but equally agonising was the possibility that she should forget him, get on with her life as she had never met him. As if he had never been a part of it.

The beast knew he would never be able to forget her, no matter how many years he would live. Never would her memory fade. She would always be a part of him.

His gaze flew upwards to the sea of stars above. She had once told him the stars were the souls of the dead lingering in the sky for all eternity. Would he find his way up there once he reached death? Or did beasts like him not have a soul?

Those last fleeting months had almost made him believe otherwise. For how could someone with no soul carry a love so deep within his malformed body? She was his sun, his moon, his air and water. And now that she was gone he had lost all light and beauty that had still been left within him.

Meeting her gave him the world only for him to have taken all substance of life away. Yet he would never regret their meeting. Never, to the ending of the world, would he wish he had never known her.

Henri. His name was Henri, he remembered again.

It did not matter anymore. She was gone. Soon nothing would be left of the boy Henri but a pair of blue human-like eyes in a monster's skull, shut for all eternity.

That was the price of arrogance.


End file.
